MISTRESS       HENLEY
the most tedious folk alive. When Mr. Henley
says to me quite simply, " Let us go and see my
cousin so-and-so/* I go; I am in the chariot or on
horseback with him, and that cannot be disagree-
able to me. But if he comes and says to me, " My
cousin is a good woman/' I reply, " No; she is
fault-finding, jealous, and tetchy." If he says that
a certain gentleman who is his cousin is an honesl:
man whom he esteems, I reply that he is a coarse
drunkard. I speak the truth but I am in the wrong,
for I cause my husband pain.
I am on excellent terms with my father-in-law;
he has middling parts and great good humour.
I embroider him waistcoats and play him the
harpsichord. But Lady Sara Melville, my siSter-
m-law, who lives with him all the summer, is so
condescending to me that it renders the place
intolerable, and I but seldom go there. If Mr.
Henley were to say to me, " Endure these airs
for love of me; I will love you all the better; I
feel them for you as for myself; but I love my
father and my brother; your coldness will gradu-
ally separate them from me, and you, yourself,
will be chagrined by the diminution of happiness
and of sweet and natural sentiments that you have
occasioned." I should then undoubtedly say,
" You are in the right, Mr. Henley; I already feel,
I have indeed often felt, the regret that you
suggest; it will increase., it distresses rne more than
I can say; let us go to my lord, an affectionate
glance from you will give me more pleasure than
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